


SCAPEGOAT

by Mikkeneko



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blood Magic, Gen, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 13:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10765641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: Sometimes it seems like they all line up to tell her, singly or in groups, how very stupid she had been.





	SCAPEGOAT

Sometimes it seems like they all line up to tell her, singly or in groups, how very blighted stupid she had been. How foolish it was to accept a Magister’s offer, to sell her people into slavery, to betray the goodwill of the King and Queen of Ferelden, to ever leave the Circles at all. She receives stern lectures blaming her for the fate of her kin that they had no choice but to leave behind when they fled for their lives; blaming her for every tower burned and life lost, to fires or riots or renegade templars, all because of her own foolishness.

Fiona accepts it all, and doesn’t argue back.

Vivienne is particularly tenacious about this; most of the others say their piece and then leave satisfied, but the Montsimmard Enchanter is an acclaimed expert at holding a grudge, and she has a special knife in for Fiona. There are too many occasions where she can’t avoid the other woman’s presence and Vivienne makes the most of these, making sure to stand her up for maximum visibility while she makes sneering, scornful insults about Fiona’s sanity, her age, her education, her heritage, all delivered with the utmost polished smooth civility. Vivienne blames her personally, Fiona knows, for the deaths of her friends and colleagues to the Circle riots; she’s not likely to let the matter rest any time soon.

Fiona doesn’t argue back.

She doesn’t argue, because she doesn’t dare to open her mouth. If she opens her mouth, if she lets the first word pass her lips, she knows they’ll all come tumbling out. 

 _It was blood magic_ , she’ll shriek, a scream powered by her own anguish, her horror. _He came to me at Redcliffe and he slit his slave’s throat in front of me, and he used the blood to put his thoughts in my head and his words in my mouth. I felt my own body move and walk and my own mouth mumble words, and every moment of every day I could feel nothing but him, him, crawling under my clothes and under my skin and running through my hair and even now I can’t get the last of it off me. He made me do it, he made my mouth open and speak words that would condemn my people to the living death that I fought and clawed and scraped my way to escape, he did it, it was him. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me._

It’s not that she thinks she wouldn’t be believed. A mage’s word isn’t worth much, in Andrastean courts, but a disgraced Tevinter magister’s word would be worth even less. No doubt if she chose to lay her accusation, it would be accepted; Alexius would be even more scorned and reviled that he already is, and all the world would know that he used blood magic to compel and control the Grand Enchanter.

She keeps silent because she _would_  be believed, so easily, too easily, and she knows what waits on the other side of that door.

People in the South have a fear of blood magic that borders on hysteria. It’s the same unreasoning terror that drove Kirkwall’s Knight-Commander mad, that has driven purges and annulments and massacres of her people all over the country, century after century. The mundanes don’t know how magic work; they’re free to fantasize, to imagine that every last apprentice is a mind-stealing monster in waiting, just looking for a chance to pounce. If she accuses Alexius, no matter that it is the truth, it won’t end there. Every mage in the Inquisition will be suspect, will be cast into doubt; interrogations and forced inspections are the least of what they can expect, if they’re lucky. If they’re not lucky, the less fortunate among them will simply be lynched.

For the first time in hundreds of years, the Inquisitor has extended a hand to the mages. He took Fiona’s people in. He even pardoned that monster Alexius from the axe, and has him down in the Undercroft, working to reproduce his notes and findings for the Inquisition’s use. And not once, not once in all the debacle in Redcliffe, not once did anyone whisper the words _blood magic_. It didn’t even occur to them to check. It didn’t even occur to them to ask.

Fiona doesn’t want it to. The Inquisitor’s trust has meaning, it has weight. Perhaps, if they can get through this, the Inquisitor’s example will lead others to follow. Perhaps, the next time a crime is committed whose perpetrator is a man of great status or wealth, the nearest mage won’t be seized and hanged on accusations of blood magic. This is their chance; this is their hope. Perhaps it is the only hope they have. 

So she says nothing. She keeps her mouth shut and her eyes down, and when people parade before her to scold her for some new dereliction, she won’t argue.

And when she goes into the Undercroft and sees him there, the man who violated her, who invaded her, who took her mind and her dignity and her reputation and soiled it past repair, he’ll look up from his research and his eyes will cross hers, and she’ll know. She’ll know.

* * *

~end.

**Author's Note:**

> On my first playthrough when I went to Redcliffe, it seemed blatantly obvious to me that Fiona was in a bad way. She was confused, disoriented, her speech slurred, she didn’t seem to know where she was. The obvious conclusion, upon hearing that she had made a bargain that was a ludicrously bad idea and completely out of character to boot, was that Alexius was controlling (or at least influencing) her through blood magic. Sure, I get that Alexius was supposed to be one of the ‘principled’ Tevinter magisters who 'wouldn’t stoop to blood magic,' but come on now; if he was willing to break the laws of time and space in order to get what he wanted, he certainly wouldn’t balk at a little bleeding.
> 
> And I waited for my characters to come to the same conclusion, and waited, and was quite surprised when not only did they not, but that the option was _never even discussed._ It was as though the Inquisitor and company had suddenly quite forgotten that mind-controlling magic existed in this setting, even to the extent of testing for it and having it disproven.
> 
> So, here you have it: Blood Magic Controlled Fiona. And why I think she might keep quiet about it, even after.


End file.
